If I cook for you or share you my food, well you must be dear to me…

Packed Lunch

When I was working in Makati, I did my best to wake up as early as I could to cook my baon (packed lunch). Aside from it saved me money it gave me free rein with how the dish would look, taste and fare in quantity i.e. will I cook just for myself or will it be good for sharing within a small group (sentiments outlined here).

One of the dishes I adored was this meatball (100% beef of course!) dish in my “home made” spicy tomato sauce. Simple and yummy.

Ingredients:

For the meatballs:

Ground beef

Minced garlic

Salt and pepper

For the home made tomato sauce:

Tomato

Basil

Garlic

Onion

Paprika

Cayenne pepper

Water

Sat and pepper (sugar, optional)

Add on – potato (wedges)

Procedure:

Mix all the meatball ingredients. One tip is to test how the meat tastes by frying a small amount of meatball. Adjust taste to your own liking. Fry all the meatballs made then set to room temperature.

Cut your potato (or potatoes) into wedges and fry. While hot, season with some salt and pepper.

For the sauce, saute onion and garlic. Then add the tomato and the basil. Dust some paprika and cayenne pepper. Stir. Add some water and bring to a boil/reduce. Season with salt and pepper (optional: sugar for umami).

Once the tomato has wilted and the sauce has thickened a bit, add the meatballs and potatoes.

Simmer for some 5-10 minutes then serve.

Meatballs with potato wedges in home made tomato sauce

This is absolutely good for sharing! If you had enough of all the meatball boredom, I suggest you have this served. Oh, and you can top it with some grated cheese too. How good is that?

~Photo taken using my now missing Olympus point and shoot digital camera.

Last week, I tried, for the very first time since I started preparing packed lunch for myself, stocking the fridge with ready to fry lumpia (spring rolls).

Not the typical pork or chicken lumpia or a combination of both but (drum roll) pork and sardines lumpia.

Yup, you heard it right, pork and sardines. Maybe you have tried it already. Er, maybe not.

Anyway it sure was a fun time “experimenting” at the kitchen, concocting this recipe.

Ingredients:

Lumpia wrapper (sorry no photo)

Ground pork — this serving is around P30 only.One can of sardines. For this dish, I removed the “tinik” (what is tinik in English? OMG) and discarded most of the tomato sauce.Grated carrots, kinchay and onion (please chop your onions finely than this. My apologies, I cooked something that night that required that kind of size from my onions).

Easy Peasy!

All you have to do is mix everything in one bowl. Hey, there is one finishing touch to my lumpia and that is raisins for that extra sweetness.

Even a 12 year old can prepare this dish. It is fun to make, it is delicious and nutritious too plus look at the colors! By the way, do not forget to season with salt and pepper. As for me, I added my favorite cayenne pepper to this mixture.

Fill the lumpia wrappers. I think this mixture was able to produce 25 to 28 rolls which I divided into two.

You can also try other veggies like jicama, celery, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers and maybe tofu as meat extender.

The other day, I had a healthy and filling lunch which I would like to share here:

(Beef) meatballs with buttered veggies and rice.

Meatballs:

Ground beef

Salt

Pepper

Panko breadcrumbs

Minced garlic

Buttered veggies:

Chayote

Carrots

String Beans

Salt

Cayenne Pepper

Butter

Easy Peasy!

Mix all the ingredients of the meatballs and fry them in a hot pan. As for the veggies, bring water to a boil, add salt, drop the carrots first, then the chayote then the string beans.

Once the veggies colors are vibrant/cooked, put butter. Sprinkle cayenne pepper on top.

As for the meatballs, of course your recipe may be different from mine but for this recipe those are what I used.

I swear by the taste and how filling my lunch was. OMG.

My kind of thing! By the way, did I mention that of course, this is a very affordable dish? If you have pantry ingredients (say the veggies are just in your crisper and you have butter too!) then this sure is a big hit.

One of my go to dishes when I am running out of both budget (yes I have serious budget issues not because I am poor in handling finances but for other reasons) and time is a jazzed up scrambled egg.

It is huge in servings (I usually use two eggs) and you can be as creative as you want!

For this entry, I used:

Two eggs beaten, seasoned with salt and pepper.Can of Century Tuna flakes in oil (you can use the spicy one too!).One shallot, black olives and cheese cut into cubes.

Saute the onion and tuna first (by the way, please drain excess oil in the can). Once the tuna is almost dried up, include your black olives. Season with a bit of salt and pepper.

After three minutes you can add the egg and if you have a non stick pan (I do not have it so the finished product looks a bit crazy) you may include the cheese cubes before flipping so it looks like an egg wrap.

I love preparing my packed lunch for work for these reasons. Oh well, let me rephrase that. Here are the reasons why you should prepare your packed lunch for work or school:

You get to control the portion (therefore you can manage to share too!).

You have a say on what to eat, how it should taste (spicy? a bit sweet? pepper-y? herb-y?) and how to prepare it.

You save money.

It’s home cooked food (not your fast food stuff that is loaded with whatever stuff to ensure longevity) and home cooked food rocks.

You get really creative in the kitchen.

If you are a complete health freak (calories, eh?), your dish can be insanely balanced!

Today I will share three pasta dishes that helped me get through a very, very, very broke stage of my working life (payroll disputes, anyone?).

With the help of some pantry ingredients, I sure made something wonderful out of these ingredients. Happy wallet, happy tummy.

The “base” of all pasta dish is the pasta of course. I found this pasta sitting on the counter (my aunt sent us some stock from the US so yeah, this pack must be put to good use!).

This pack of linguine lasted for three solo batches as shown on this blog post.

First pasta dish: Pasta in Meaty Red Sauce

One whole garlicOne whole onionOne carrot

Not in photo: Ground Beef

Cost of this dish:

Onion – 10 PhP

Carrot – 15 PhP

(Garlic – pantry)

Ground Beef – 22 PhP

Tomato Sauce – 12 PhP

Total: 59 PhP or roughly 1.28 USD

Heaping serving of this meaty, healthy goodness!

By the way, this dish could feed two people! I was not able to finish this serving because it’s a lot. Blame it on the hearty meat sauce.

As for the procedure, all you have to do is saute the onion and once translucent drop the garlic. Once the garlic starts to be golden brown (not burnt okay?) add the ground beef. Cook well. Put the tomato sauce and a bit of pasta water. Whilst reducing you may add the shredded carrots. Season with salt, pepper and a bit of sugar. Reduce to your desired consistency. Serve on top of the cooked linguine.

Something worth mentioning: the smell of the reduction drove my two cousins crazy (we are neighbors) that one of them tracked where the smell was coming from and bam! Found me cooking this baby.

Second Dish: Pasta with Smoked Longganisa (Filipino sausage)

My go-to pasta dish! This pasta dish is super easy to prepare and super inexpensive! If you have some left over longganisa in the fridge or a pack of pasta at home (like me!) then wow, you found a treasure!

Longganisa is such a joy to work with. I do not really like this delicacy as viand (especially the round, little ones in pork casing) but I like it when I put it in fried rice and in pasta…like this one!

One whole garlicTo be exact, that is five pieces/slices of smoked longganisa

Saute the garlic and once it starts to be golden brown, add the smoked longganisa. Cook for five to ten minutes, add pasta, adjust taste with salt, pepper and as for me, I added my ever favorite chili flakes for that extra spice. You may add Italian seasoning too if you want! Too bad my little jar of Italian seasoning expired weeks ago so the left over I had to throw away too — bye good friend, you have been spectacular.

Third Dish: Pasta with Spanish Style Sardines

This is no bullshit, in your face, quickie, taste overload pasta!

This is a can of black olives I found at home.

This damn thing gets snubbed at home so I am going to make it the best supporting actress of my dish haha.

My apologies — was not able to take a photo of the Spanish style sardines (in can) and the several cloves of garlic used (yup, not a whole garlic, just maybe three to four cloves of finely chopped garlic).

Cost of this dish:

My apologies again, I forgot the price of the sardines! Kick me on the shin! Well let us peg it at 30 PhP, I know it’s less than that but let us put it at that. By the way, its brand name is “Family Spnish Style sardines” to those who are curious.

(Garlic – pantry)

Eden cheese slice, individually packed – 12 PhP

Total: 42 PhP or roughly 0.92 USD

This will put all those overpriced and overhyped pasta dishes to shame.

Easy peasy. Saute garlic until golden brown (again, not burnt! LOL) then, add the sardines, cook for some five minutes, add the olives, cook for two more minutes, toss in the pasta. As for me, I did not add anymore seasoning, I just served it as it is, anyhow, I will be putting cheese which will add saltiness to the pasta dish. Oh! You may add some herbs or chili flakes if you want! And garlic bread on the side too.

Roughly, for three days I only spent 101 PhP or 2.20 USD and on a fine payday my lunch would range anywhere between 200 to 400 PhP see the difference. I know there is some effort involved but don’t you think a little effort in this world of instant everything (instant celebrity, instant millionaire, instant boyfriend, instant noodles) is worth the shot?

Come to think of it, you shell out some 200 PhP for a plate of pasta that you can replicate at home — this is luxury especially if done everyday or most of the time especially if you are paying your bills with a meager income. If you have more than enough, cooking your meal is not a bad idea at all, still a win-win situation, yes? See above reasons why you should, at least at some point, prepare your packed lunch.